Chapter 7 - The Woman in RedFor several seconds Sophie thought she had misunderstood him.
“No.”
The word left her automatically.
Laurent did not move.
“Camilla was Vittorio Russo’s daughter.”
“She was raised as Vittorio Russo’s daughter.”
“That is the same thing.”
“No.”
Alessandro stood beside the crypt wall, expression unreadable.
But Sophie saw the calculation beginning behind his eyes.
“Explain,” he said.
Laurent looked exhausted.
“In 1995, Gabriel Devereaux was operating Moretti transportation routes between Marseille, Corsica, and Naples. He was useful because no one knew whether his loyalty belonged to Salvatore, Russo, or himself.”
“And Camilla?” Sophie demanded.
“Her mother, Elena Russo, had an affair with him.”
Sophie remembered Camilla’s face when she accused Vittorio of murdering her mother.
“I thought Elena discovered Claire’s letters.”
“She did. Years later.”
Laurent rubbed one hand over his face.
“But before that, she gave birth to Camilla. Vittorio knew the child was not his.”
“Then why raise her?”
“Power.”
Alessandro answered.
Laurent nodded.
“Vittorio could not have children. His political ambitions required the image of a family. Elena’s pregnancy solved two problems. Russo received an heir. Devereaux’s daughter disappeared behind another man’s name.”
Sophie felt sick.
“Did Camilla know?”
“No.”
“Did Devereaux?”
“Yes.”
“And he let Vittorio raise her?”
“He believed it protected her.”
Sophie laughed bitterly.
“That disease appears common among fathers.”
Laurent flinched.
She regretted it immediately.
Not enough to apologize.
“Why come back now?” Alessandro asked.
“Because the network is gone. Russo is imprisoned. Salvatore is dead. Devereaux no longer has to hide.”
“He waited a year.”
“He did not know where Étienne placed the registry.”
“The chess queen.”
“Yes.”
Sophie paced the narrow crypt.
“But Camilla is dead.”
Silence.
She stopped.
Laurent looked at the floor.
Sophie’s pulse changed.
“No.”
Alessandro stared at Laurent.
“What aren’t you saying?”
Laurent’s face became gray.
“Devereaux believes she survived.”
Sophie actually laughed.
It came out sharp.
Broken.
“I watched her die.”
“I know.”
“I held her.”
“I know.”
“She stopped breathing.”
“Yes.”
“The paramedics covered her body.”
“Yes.”
“She was buried.”
Laurent lifted his eyes.
“Was she?”
Sophie stopped breathing.
Alessandro reached for his phone.
“Her funeral was closed casket.”
Sophie remembered.
The Russo family had insisted.
Security.
Media attention.
Federal investigation.
Vittorio Russo had attended under guard.
Sophie had stood outside in the rain because she had not been invited inside.
“I saw the death certificate.”
Alessandro’s voice became cold.
“Death certificates can be purchased.”
“You sent people to the hospital.”
“I sent Marco.”
“And?”
Alessandro said nothing.
He was remembering.
“Marco saw her enter surgery.”
“Did he see her afterward?”
“No.”
Sophie turned toward Laurent.
“Tell me.”
“I do not know if she lived.”
“That is not good enough.”
“It is the truth.”
“Who took her?”
“If Devereaux’s people controlled even one person inside the hospital, they could have changed the records.”
“Why?”
“To hide her from Vittorio.”
Sophie felt anger rising faster than thought.
“So she survived and decided not to tell me?”
“You do not know that.”
“She knew where I was.”
“If she survived a gunshot, Sophie, she may not have known anything for weeks.”
Alessandro’s phone rang.
Marco.
He answered immediately.
“Find Camilla Russo’s hospital record from the night she was shot. Original admissions, surgical notes, morgue transfer, everything.”
He listened.
“No. Do not call anyone connected to the old investigation.”
Another pause.
“Because we may have buried the wrong woman.”
He ended the call.
Sophie stared toward the crypt entrance.
The Mediterranean sun reached only a few feet down the stairs.
The rest remained underground.
Secrets preferred basements.
“Locker 317,” she said.
Marseille Central Station had changed security systems twice since Étienne’s disappearance.
Locker 317 no longer existed.
But beneath the modern terminal, an older luggage storage area remained sealed behind maintenance doors.
Laurent knew the retired station supervisor.
Alessandro knew how to persuade his replacement.
Sophie decided not to ask which method was used.
They found locker 317 in a corridor that smelled of dust and rust.
The key opened it.
Inside was a red silk scarf.
Sophie froze.
Camilla had worn one like it in photographs taken weeks before her death.
Beneath the scarf sat a ledger.
Smaller than the others.
Blue leather.
Sophie opened it.
Names were written in Étienne’s hand.
Not criminal names.
Children.
Original birth dates.
New names.
Adoptive identities.
Sealed locations.
Many entries were crossed out.
At number seventy-three:
INFANT FEMALE — MARSEILLE
Mother: Elena V.
Biological father: G.D.
Transferred identity: C.R.
Below it, written years later:
ELENA REQUESTS PROTECTION. V.R. MUST NEVER KNOW.
Sophie touched the initials.
“Camilla.”
Laurent nodded.
Alessandro turned several pages backward.
Then stopped.
His expression changed.
“What?”
He closed the book.
“Nothing.”
Sophie held out her hand.
“Give it to me.”
“Sophie.”
“Now.”
He did.
Entry forty-one.
INFANT MALE — NAPLES
Mother: Sofia Bellandi.
Biological father: S.M.
Transferred identity—
The line had been scratched away.
Sophie looked at Alessandro.
“S.M.”
He said nothing.
“Salvatore Moretti.”
“Yes.”
“Your father had another child.”
“Apparently.”
“Your brother?”
“Or half brother.”
“Where is he?”
“The identity is removed.”
Laurent leaned closer.
“There is writing beneath the scratched section.”
Sophie angled the page.
A faint indentation remained.
She took a pencil from the station office and shaded lightly across the paper.
Letters appeared.
GABRIEL D. CUSTODY
Alessandro stared.
“My father gave his son to Devereaux.”
“Or Devereaux took him,” Sophie said.
Laurent looked suddenly afraid.
“What?”
Sophie understood first.
“Camilla was not his only reason to keep the registry.”
Alessandro’s face hardened.
“He raised my father’s other son.”
A sound behind them.
A click.
Gun safety.
“Correct.”
They turned.
Gabriel Devereaux stood at the end of the corridor.
He was tall despite his age, perhaps early sixties, with silver hair cut short and a face weathered by old injuries. A handgun rested calmly in his right hand.
Two men stood behind him.
Between them was Marco.
Blood ran from Marco’s mouth.
Alessandro moved.
Devereaux raised the weapon.
“Do not.”
Alessandro stopped.
Marco shook his head once.
He was conscious.
Angry.
Alive.
Devereaux looked toward Sophie.
“You have your mother’s eyes.”
Sophie’s skin crawled.
“You knew her?”
“I knew Claire before Étienne.”
“That does not make us friends.”
“No.”
His eyes moved to Laurent.
“Luc.”
“Gabriel.”
“You always were difficult to kill.”
“So were you.”
Devereaux smiled.
“Give me the ledger.”
Sophie held it tighter.
“No.”
His attention returned to her.
“You inherited Étienne’s courage.”
“My father called it guilt.”
“He was a complicated man.”
“You kidnapped Laurent.”
“I asked him questions.”
“With a gun?”
“Questions become efficient when properly punctuated.”
Alessandro stepped slightly in front of Sophie.
Devereaux noticed.
“Salvatore would laugh.”
“At what?”
“His son protecting Étienne Dubois’s daughter.”
Alessandro’s voice was quiet.
“My father is dead.”
“Yes.”
“And still disappointing us.”
Something almost respectful passed through Devereaux’s eyes.
Then Sophie asked, “Is Camilla alive?”
For the first time his expression broke.
Not much.
Enough.
Sophie saw hope.
Pain.
Fear.
“I do not know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I got her out of the hospital.”
The corridor disappeared.
Sophie heard only his words.
“She was alive?”
“Yes.”
“Conscious?”
“No.”
“What happened?”
“She survived surgery. Vittorio had men inside the hospital. He had already killed one daughter in everything but blood. I would not let him finish.”
“So you took her.”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“France.”
“Then where is she?”
Devereaux’s jaw tightened.
“She disappeared three months later.”
“What do you mean disappeared?”
“She woke with memory gaps. She remembered Vittorio. She remembered being shot.”
His eyes moved to Sophie.
“She remembered you.”
Sophie’s throat closed.
“And?”
“She discovered who I was.”
“You told her?”
“I showed her proof.”
“And she ran from you.”
“Yes.”
Sophie almost laughed at the symmetry.
Another father.
Another daughter.
Another man deciding that blood entitled him to forgiveness.
Devereaux continued.
“I have searched for a year.”
“The microfilm?”
“Contains every alias Étienne ever created. Including emergency identities.”
“You think Camilla used one.”
“Yes.”
“Then why steal it instead of asking?”
“Would you have given it to me?”
“No.”
“Exactly.”
Sophie stepped forward.
Alessandro caught her elbow.
She ignored him.
“If she ran from you, maybe she does not want to be found.”
Devereaux’s expression hardened.
“She is my daughter.”
“That sentence has excused too much already.”
His gun shifted.
Not toward Sophie.
Toward Alessandro.
“You know nothing about losing a child.”
Sophie saw Alessandro become still.
Dangerously still.
“No,” Alessandro said.
“But I know something about fathers who believe ownership is love.”
Devereaux’s eyes narrowed.
A train passed above them.
The old corridor trembled.
Dust fell from the ceiling.
Then Marco moved.
He drove his head backward into the guard behind him.
Alessandro crossed the distance before Devereaux could fire.
The gunshot struck concrete.
Sophie dropped behind the lockers.
Laurent tackled the second man with surprising force.
Marco and Alessandro fought like men who had done this together too many times to require communication.
Devereaux slammed Alessandro against the wall.
For an old man, he was brutally fast.
Sophie saw the gun on the floor.
So did Devereaux.
They reached it simultaneously.
Sophie kicked it beneath the lockers.
Devereaux caught her shoulder.
Then stopped.
He could have struck her.
He did not.
That hesitation cost him.
Alessandro drove him backward.
Marco pinned him against the wall.
“Enough,” Sophie shouted.
Everyone stopped.
Even Alessandro.
Sophie stood holding the blue ledger.
“We are not doing this the old way.”
Devereaux laughed breathlessly.
“There is no new way.”
“Yes, there is.”
She looked at the men around her.
Moretti.
Moreau.
Devereaux.
Names that had spent decades solving problems with blood.
“We find Camilla.”
Devereaux stared.
“And afterward?”
“If she wants to see you, she decides.”
“She is my daughter.”
“She is a woman you abandoned to another monster.”
His face tightened.
Sophie stepped closer.
“You do not get to cross the board and call yourself her father because you arrived at the final square.”
For the first time, Gabriel Devereaux had no answer.
Marco’s phone rang.
He checked the screen.
Then looked at Alessandro.
“I found the hospital records.”
Sophie’s heartbeat changed.
“And?”
Marco looked directly at her.
“The woman buried as Camilla Russo had no surgical scar.”
Silence.
Sophie closed her eyes.
Camilla had lived.
At least beyond that night.
Somewhere in the world, the woman in red might still be breathing.
May you like
Sophie opened her eyes.
“Find her.”
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